"Future" Trunks Arc Timeline & Paradox Discussion Thread

[ekrolo2]

That is because Black and Future Zamasu are murdering the future gods. Killing them wouldn't erased their past selves. It works for Beerus because he kills Zamasu before he could become Black, since Black is the future of Present Zamasu.

I fully agree that it could have been made a bit different. Especially the Ring of Time was not necessary for a Bootstrap. But to be honest with you, while there are some problems in all sorts of time concepts I can still see what they wanted to go with.]

Then why isn't Future Zamasu dead, the one currently helping Black? Why isn't Gowasu dead everywhere if Black killed him in his timeline well before Beerus did anything?

See, its really stupid because they say Beerus just makes a split timeline when the actual show tries to make his killing of Zamasu a ripple effect kind of thing and both don't need one another. So what is it, is it a split timeline situation or a ripple effect? Cause having both is pointless and convoluted.

[Cetra]

That is because Black and Future Zamasu are murdering the future gods. Killing them wouldn't erased their past selves. It works for Beerus because he kills Zamasu before he could become Black, since Black is the future of Present Zamasu.

I fully agree that it could have been made a bit different. Especially the Ring of Time was not necessary for a Bootstrap. But to be honest with you, while there are some problems in all sorts of time concepts I can still see what they wanted to go with.]

Then why isn't Future Zamasu dead, the one currently helping Black? Why isn't Gowasu dead everywhere if Black killed him in his timeline well before Beerus did anything?

See, its really stupid because they say Beerus just makes a split timeline when the actual show tries to make his killing of Zamasu a ripple effect kind of thing and both don't need one another. So what is it, is it a split timeline situation or a ripple effect? Cause having both is pointless and convoluted.

That is what I was telling everyone from the very beginning. They mixed stuff. But yes, they also brought in a few mistakes like potential problems when it comes to the god killing thing. It is fully okay for you to point that out. It is just something we have to live with.

And Heror, you answered in the middle of quoting me.

[Hugo Boss]

I think they could have said Zamasu used the Time Ring before Whis rewinded time, so that one version of Zamasu would become protected from Whis' powers.

[Marlowe89]

So Toei's official explanation is indeed that there was a causal loop until Beerus created an additional timeline split.

It still doesn't make an awful lot of sense though. God or not, it eludes me as to how Beerus could be capable of "interfering" with the loop if one of the main driving forces behind the loop's existence was the causality of all of Beerus' decisions up to that point. For example: Black temporarily goes back in time, causing Beerus to decide to investigate Zamasu in Universe 10, causing Goku to fight Zamasu, eventually leading to Zamasu planning to steal Goku's body, further leading to Beerus continuing his investigation where he eventually kills Zamasu. So if the loop's existence partially depends on Beerus' choices, then Beerus' choices cannot exist independently of the loop - but if Beerus' choices culminate in Zamasu getting destroyed before his plans take off, there would have been no opportunity for Black to ever come into existence.

If they really wanted to go for a causal time loop, I think it would have been better if Zamasu had just successfully killed Gowasu and left for the future before Beerus could catch up to him. That way the loop is stable and coherent, and at least the viewers can make sense of it. An alternative but less likely explanation is that Whis really does create new timelines when he uses his rewind ability.

[ekrolo2]

So Toei's official explanation is indeed that there was a causal loop until Beerus created an additional timeline split.

It still doesn't make an awful lot of sense though. God or not, it eludes me as to how Beerus could be capable of "interfering" with the loop if one of the main driving forces behind the loop's existence was the causality of all of Beerus' decisions up to that point. For example: Black temporarily goes back in time, causing Beerus to decide to investigate Zamasu in Universe 10, causing Goku to fight Zamasu, eventually leading to Zamasu planning to steal Goku's body, further leading to Beerus continuing his investigation where he eventually kills Zamasu. So if the loop's existence partially depends on Beerus' choices, then Beerus' choices cannot exist independently of the loop - but if Beerus' choices culminate in Zamasu getting destroyed before his plans take off, there would have been no opportunity for Black to ever come into existence.

If they really wanted to go for a causal time loop, I think it would have been better if Zamasu had just successfully killed Gowasu and left for the future before Beerus could catch up to him. That way the loop is stable and coherent, and at least the viewers can make sense of it. An alternative but less likely explanation is that Whis really does create new timelines when he uses his rewind ability.

It's particularly questionable as an explanation since the show itself doesn't act like its a split timeline at all but rather some kind of loop. Beerus says his actions would ripple into the future since that's what happens when one God kills another (which is total horseshit because every Kai and GoD should be dead too thanks to Future Zamasu & Black) and the show supports this by saying Black's Time Ring protects him from Beerus eliminating his history from the equation by killing him at a point before he became Black.

So, the show acts like Black comes from a timeline that no longer happened because Beerus kills him yet Toei's official stance is that Beerus just split the timeline.

[dbs fanboy]

Ok, i'm getting more confused now.
I mean where's the problem?
So, in the main timeline, for X reasons Zamasu met Goku, killed Gowasu and became Black.

Black went to the future making Trunks go back in time, wich in the end will split the timeline saving Goku's World. For me is pretty simple, my issues are the fact that we don't exactly know how did Zamasu met Goku in his timeline and why.

Yeah, i know that in ep 61 we saw ep's 53 fight but seriously i thought that Toei just decided to repeat the same scene to save animation

But now i'm getting confused because i see people talking about some issue and i really don't get what is the issue, please explain it to me.

[Cetra]

Ok, i'm getting more confused now.
I mean where's the problem?
So, in the main timeline, for X reasons Zamasu met Goku, killed Gowasu and became Black.

Black went to the future making Trunks go back in time, wich in the end will split the timeline saving Goku's World. For me is pretty simple, my issues are the fact that we don't exactly know how did Zamasu met Goku in his timeline and why.

Yeah, i know that in ep 61 we saw ep's 53 fight but seriously i thought that Toei just decided to repeat the same scene to save animation

But now i'm getting confused because i see people talking about some issue and i really don't get what is the issue, please explain it to me.

There is no "the fact how Zamasu met Goku". There was only one timeline where Trunks always came back as Black already existed through the everlasting bootstrap. This bootstrap exists and guarantees Black's existence, there was just a way out of it (next to the bootstrap still running) because the Ring that Black has in the future ignored Beerus' power and instead of destroying him, split the timeline at the point where Zamas was destroyed so one Zamas survived to become Black.

And again. And again. And again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr9PpC1QOO8

[DragonHermit]

I still don't understand how Beerus killing Zamasu caused the timelines to diverge. Why would the timelines split there?

A new timeline is only created through time travel.

[Cetra]

They made an exception by saying Black had the ring in the future and this protected Past Zamasu, making one Past Zamasu survive and therefore splitting time into the Dead Zamas time and the Protected Zamas who can fully and without any problems become Black time. Beerus' moment was a splitting moment. And theoretically, if we actually go after multiversal theory, than it is not just time travelling that can split timelines.

[DragonHermit]

They made an exception by saying Black had the ring in the future and this protected Past Zamasu, making one Past Zamasu survive and therefore splitting time into the Dead Zamas time and the Protected Zamas who can fully and without any problems become Black time. Beerus' moment was a splitting moment. And theoretically, if we actually go after multiversal theory, than it is not just time travelling that can split timelines.

LOL so it's a DOUBLE paradox then?

Paradox 1: Black was created by Goku meeting Zamasu, after Goku already met Black.

Paradox 2: A "new timeline" was created because Black already had a ring from that "new timeline".

[Cetra]

Eh, sort of. It depends. It is a combo of several ideas. But you got the gist of it. Basically you can take it as one bootstrap though that was supposed to have one way out through that alternate time where Zamas died, while the cycle itself still was intact.

[DragonHermit]

Eh, sort of. It depends. It is a combo of several ideas.

What do you mean? We have 2 paradoxes. One in which Black's existence is incumbent on Black meeting Goku before his own creation. And another in which a new timeline is created because someone from that timeline already existed with a time ring.

[Cipher]

So Toei's official explanation is indeed that there was a causal loop until Beerus created an additional timeline split.

It still doesn't make an awful lot of sense though. God or not, it eludes me as to how Beerus could be capable of "interfering" with the loop if one of the main driving forces behind the loop's existence was the causality of all of Beerus' decisions up to that point.

Yeah, the way they present it really doesn't mesh with what we get in the series. I'm going to assume the way they've worded it is a bit of over-simplification: Beerus' actions are the final step in ensuring Black isn't created, leading to the biggest difference between the version of events we get and those that make up Black's history, but he isn't solely responsible for overwriting the original events. Rather, he's the end of a process that begins with Trunks (and Black, in the anime) entering the past.

And yeah; I would have been absolutely fine with a loop, and expected one for a while. They could have made Beerus, Whis and Goku's investigations essential to the creation of Black. But that's not what we got.

An actual loop can't come into play anywhere here, based on what we've seen, Toei graphic or not. Marlowe89 laid it out perfectly well; if Beerus makes a series of choices that culminate in Zamasu's death before he even steals a Time Ring, there's no way they can factor into Black's creation. Nor is that what anything has remotely implied until this vaguely worded bit on the Toei site. Not putting stock in that. I'll go with what's on screen.

[Cetra]

Eh, sort of. It depends. It is a combo of several ideas.

What do you mean? We have 2 paradoxes. One in which Black's existence is incumbent on Black meeting Goku before his own creation. And another in which a new timeline being created because someone from that timeline already existed with a time ring.

It happens all within one loop that covers 2 timelines, with one of them branching into two seperate ways. Because that bootstrap is "inter-timeline-dependant" I call it one paradox.

And yeah; I would have been absolutely fine with a loop, and expected one for a while. They could have made Beerus, Whis and Goku's investigations essential to the creation of Black. But that's not what we got.

Of course we got that. The investigations still happened before the Beerus split.

[DragonHermit]

It happens all within one loop that covers 2 timelines, with one of them branching into two seperate ways. Because that bootstrap is "inter-timeline-dependant" I call it one paradox.

I get that it's one giant loop. But that one loop contains 2 instances of paradoxes is what I mean.

[Cetra]

It happens all within one loop that covers 2 timelines, with one of them branching into two seperate ways. Because that bootstrap is "inter-timeline-dependant" I call it one paradox.

I get that it's one giant loop. But that one loop contains 2 instances of paradoxes is what I mean.

Which is why I said you got the gist of it. But as it is part of one loop I would not take is as seperate as you. Maybe it is just our phrasing that differs here.

[Terez]

So Toei's official explanation is indeed that there was a causal loop until Beerus created an additional timeline split.

It still doesn't make an awful lot of sense though. God or not, it eludes me as to how Beerus could be capable of "interfering" with the loop if one of the main driving forces behind the loop's existence was the causality of all of Beerus' decisions up to that point.

Yeah, the way they present it really doesn't mesh with what we get in the series. I'm going to assume the way they've worded it is a bit of over-simplification: Beerus' actions are the final step in ensuring Black isn't created, leading to the biggest difference between the version of events we get and those that make up Black's history, but he isn't solely responsible for overwriting the original events. Rather, he's the end of a process that begins with Trunks (and Black, in the anime) entering the past.

And yeah; I would have been absolutely fine with a loop, and expected one for a while. They could have made Beerus, Whis and Goku's investigations essential to the creation of Black. But that's not what we got.

An actual loop can't come into play anywhere here, based on what we've seen, Toei graphic or not. Marlowe89 laid it out perfectly well; if Beerus makes a series of choices that culminate in Zamasu's death before he even steals a Time Ring, there's no way they can factor into Black's creation. Nor is that what anything has remotely implied until this vaguely worded bit on the Toei site. Not putting stock in that. I'll go with what's on screen.

Just popping in; haven't read back very far at all. But it's worth pointing out that the Toei diagram makes it pretty clear that Trunks never arrived in Black's timeline. I think we're supposed to be able to figure out that this is what led to the different scenario with Zamasu killing Gowasu.

That scene was reanimated; if it was supposed to be the same they could have just reused their animation from ep59. But they reanimated it and introduced several differences. When Dead Zamasu killed Gowasu, he aimed for the neck and Gowasu collapsed to the table. When Zamasu-cum-Black killed Gowasu, he stabbed him through the torso and Gowasu fell to the ground. There was also no green tea or daifuku on the table.

The Toei diagram also makes it clear that Zamasu jumped one year into the future of his own timeline to use the SDBs and steal Goku's body, and that Goku had obviously never seen Black before. He was surprised to see someone else in his own body. This only makes sense in a timeline where Trunks never arrived.

[Shinomori]

I'm with others in that this would be much simpler had the show make Black a Zamasu of a very different timeline. A timeline where he never officially met Goku, but learned of him through the universe 6 vs 7 tournament. Shoot, it's not like we made that scene up. This was an actual scene in the show where they were looking at the tournament on "Godtube". Yet no, they wanted to have this mystical loop idea where none of this would be happening had Goku not fought Zamasu in universe 10 but at the same time, Goku would have never known about Zamasu had Black never fought him the first time. The writers screwed themselves when they didn't have to. I mean they REALLY didn't have to, yet they did it anyway.

[Gowasum]

[spoiler]Herms's translation:
[/spoiler]

If this is official, then they really went on without noticing or simply ignoring their own plothole. Going with their graphic and assuming that the main timeline always happens as it is pictured, the following flaws in logic appear:

1.) How can Black ever get created if all of Beerus actions are caused by Trunks/Black going to the past which always leads to Zamasus death before he can actually become Black?
2.) If Beerus indeed somehow is able to split the timeline (which is an obvious asspull since the same action can´t cause two different results under the same circumstances), then why are the events of Gowasus death portrayed differently in Blacks explanation to the one that we see before Whis rewinds time?

Obviously as many already explained an alternate timeline with some slightly different events or an overwritten timeline would explain things easily. Instead they really go for this bullcrap.. well played Toei, well played.

[Terez]

How can Black ever get created if all of Beerus actions are caused by Trunks/Black going to the past which always leads to Zamasus death before he can actually become Black?

It's not all that difficult to imagine how Black could be created without Trunks; if it can happen in a scenario where Trunks does arrive (as we see in the manga) then it can certainly happen in a scenario where Trunks doesn't arrive. The anime's explanation of what happened in Black's timeline will probably be very similar to Toyotarō's depiction in the manga, assuming we ever get an explanation. For now, all we need to know is that they sparred to more or less the same result.